Chapter 1344: Escape from Fear

Those who have never truly experienced fear will never understand its taste.

As an adult with the ability to think and act, living in a modern civilized society, one should not be tormented like this: you feel like you’ve turned into a soft, helpless slug, lying on the ground, waiting for that iron-like foot to finally crush you. Its shadow always looms over you; you don’t know when this moment will happen or if it will happen at all; you only know that once it does, you’re done for.

You spend your days in a daze, your steps unsteady, tears and sleeplessness just minor by-products. No one who passes by would know that every step you take is on the edge of a dark abyss. With a gust of wind, you fall down, never to see tomorrow again.

Regrets, of course, there are regrets. If given another chance, Guan Hailian would never have helped cover Wan Qingge’s words; he would have let Wan Qingge tell the complete story of where they met while running outside the car – after all, he had to save himself first.

On the third day of close surveillance, several unfamiliar men with laptops knocked on Guan Hailian’s door. He had learned not to ask who they were or to demand identification; he simply needed to obediently open the door. Looking back now, he didn’t even know the name of the agency monitoring him.

From that laptop, Guan Hailian saw a snippet of in-car surveillance footage. Unlike other taxi cameras mainly aimed at passengers, this one was tightly focused on his face, with an additional microphone attached. He watched himself on the screen driving while constantly glancing out the window; from the screen beyond the surveillance, the posthuman’s words were cut off midway: “The address I’m going to is—”

As he slapped the steering wheel on the screen, a loud honk drowned out the posthuman’s voice and Guan Hailian’s sanity. He couldn’t even tremble anymore. His body sat limply in the chair, soaked in his own cold sweat, and he couldn’t lift a finger.

“It’s really strange how people like you always manage to encounter each other,” the man playing the recording chuckled mockingly.

They had always wanted the answer to this question. Even though Guan Hailian had answered it dozens of times, they still didn’t believe he was telling the truth.

If space were compared to a membrane, then the density and weight of a posthuman were greater than those of an ordinary person, causing larger depressions in the membrane; when another posthuman of equal weight appeared, they would naturally move towards the depression. Convergence – this wasn’t something he had thought of himself. He had heard it from another posthuman. The other person seemed to be half a physicist before doomsday, spending a long time explaining the membrane universe theory to Guan Hailian, who still didn’t understand it but remembered this metaphor.

Now, his mind was not on the membrane universe theory but on the physicist. At that time, he would quietly interact with the posthuman who had lost his abilities, not for any purpose, but because they had more to discuss among themselves, even though their conversations were superficial.

After several intermittent conversations between the two, the physicist said he wanted to figure out what this place was all about – that was the last message Guan Hailian received from him. After that, the other party evaporated from the face of the earth.

Guan Hailian didn’t know what had happened to him, but since then, he had understood a message that had never been expressed by anyone in this world.

He knew all the risks very well, so why did he still honk the horn?

The man playing the recording said many things, but fear had already severed his reason, so he couldn’t hear anything clearly. It was only after a while that a word, like the echoing chime of a bell, gradually became clear from the background noise. “Pay for your mistake.”

Of course, Guan Hailian was willing. Now, he was willing to do anything.

“We still haven’t received the latest exact location of Lin Sanjiu,” the man said, crossing one leg over the other, clasping his hands, and leaning back on his sofa. “She used some means to temporarily conceal herself. But if she thinks she can continue to act recklessly, she’s wrong. We have already pinpointed the approximate area where she is.”

‘This person must be of a high rank,’ Guan Hailian suddenly thought. He knew some things about posthumans, but his subordinates who came with him looked clueless, obviously unaware – no wonder he spoke so discreetly.

“You go to that area daily for work,” the man concluded, “and scout around, try to infiltrate their ranks.”

After thinking carefully for a while, he added a few more sentences.

“In addition to reporting on Lin Sanjiu’s movements, you should also pay special attention to a man named He Huan around her. We received information that he was responsible for the planning of the last advertising operation and was the one who came up with ideas for the group. I want to know everything he says and does. Do you understand? Even if it’s just farting, you have to go and sniff it, then come back and report to me.”

If those posthumans didn’t know they were being watched when they arrived, they naturally wouldn’t suspect that he was sent by someone… Come to think of it, it might be safer to infiltrate the posthuman group internally.

So Guan Hailian went, and sure enough, he picked up a posthuman girl within a few days. She did not lack vigilance and didn’t let Guan Hailian take her all the way to the posthuman gathering place. He didn’t dare follow rashly. After circling around for another day or two, just when he was worried about how to find their meeting place, unexpectedly, a woman named Lin Sanjiu appeared and personally brought him back.

What happened next was unexpected to him, one after another.

Posthumans probably still didn’t know that people in this world actually saw them as enemies – this was also a safety measure for Guan Hailian’s current operation. But he didn’t expect this safety measure to be broken shortly after being captured. Lin Sanjiu somehow brought in an ordinary person named Han Suiping, who turned out to be quite an anomaly; clearly just an ordinary person, yet he had managed to grasp a small part of the truth about this world and even joined the posthuman group.

At that moment, Guan Hailian looked at Han Suiping, almost speechless. He took a completely opposite path, yet the driving force was the same as his, born out of fear of the same group.

How ridiculous this world is.

He thought that once this was exposed, he, who had been wandering in this area, would surely be the first to be suspected of spying—that was reasonable. He would suspect the same if he were in Lin Sanjiu’s position.

However, Lin Sanjiu came up to him and extended her hand. Under the dim light of the electric lamp, the light and shadow sharply defined her facial contours. Only her eyes shimmered brightly, like amber gemstones, but with warmth.

“Welcome aboard.” She clasped Guan Hailian’s hand firmly, her palm long and powerful, as if the bones beneath the skin were made of steel. She accepted him like this, even though she already knew that people in this world were monitoring them in every possible way.

Guan Hailian had never been accepted so easily. Although he had been in this world for years, he still couldn’t fit in.

So, this is what it means to be a posthuman. He felt like a distant memory had floated up. She was so confident, so determined… as if she knew that no matter how many obstacles lay ahead, she would still prevail.

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